


just let me adore you

by 24Carrots



Category: Harry Styles (Musician), Schitt's Creek (TV) RPF
Genre: Blow Jobs, Friends With Benefits, Hand Jobs, Late Night Conversations, M/M, Quarantine fuckbuddies, Rimming
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-06
Updated: 2020-11-06
Packaged: 2021-03-08 19:08:25
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,776
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27421723
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/24Carrots/pseuds/24Carrots
Summary: In the almost-year since the show wrapped, Dan has made a lot of progress when it comes to rolling with the unexpected, given, well, everything. But even by 2020 standards, Harry Styles in his life, in his bed, is a surprise.Or: Stuck in LA, Dan strikes up an unexpected friendship with benefits that helps clarify what he wants out of his career and with Noah.
Relationships: Dan Levy/Harry Styles, Dan Levy/Noah Reid
Comments: 25
Kudos: 83





	just let me adore you

**Author's Note:**

> My brain started puzzling this out in March or April and with election-induced insomnia I decided to finally get it down. Apparently according to twitter I should have made it about Dan/Steve Kornacki but I hope it’s enjoyable anyway. If entirely fictional Dan Levy/Harry Styles is not your thing, that back button is right there for you. 
> 
> While this is certainly not about the pandemic, it does take place in the year of our lord 2020 and is canon compliant as it were. Except for the part where everyone is single and, I assume, the fucking.
> 
> Title is from [Adore You](https://youtu.be/iquhBgM-Qv0) by Harry Styles.
> 
> Thanks to L and S for help and encouragement.

In the almost-year since the show wrapped, Dan has made a lot of progress when it comes to rolling with the unexpected, given, well, everything.

Like that night in February after Noah’s LA show, a night filled with too much food and just the right amount of laughter and too little time to say all the things that probably should have been said. In the quiet hours of the morning, they said goodbye at least, which was what Dan thought he most needed to say. If their lives ever quit racing in opposite directions, maybe he’ll find a way to say the rest of it. 

Now, with him stuck in LA and Noah stuck in Toronto, it’s probably for the best. If they’d kept it going, it would just be one more thing to put on hold. Another in a long string of bad timing and difficult choices and unfortunate circumstances. 

But even by 2020 standards, Harry Styles in his life, in his bed, is a surprise. 

They meet for the first time in 2019, backstage at the Forum right before the holidays. It’s kind of a blur. He’s glad he’s sort of an actor now because it takes everything he has not to lose his shit. He probably loses his shit. After they talk, Dan watches him circulate, still damp and smelling like adoration and adrenaline. Harry is taller than he expected, and more charismatic. Dan thought he would be charming but he wasn’t prepared for how specific he was about it. Intent. Intense. 

The second time, Dan is at a Leap Year party thrown by Kacey Musgraves. It’s a smaller party than he was expecting, casual and free of photographers and publicists. Well almost free of publicists. His pocket buzzes and he ducks out the back door to check an email from Megan about scheduling another round of interviews before the finale. He returns it quickly. And then, because he’s him, he calls her and leaves her a voicemail about the email. And texts her an apology for being neurotic. He’s not chill about the finale press and reception, but it’s fine. He’s leaning into it.

“You know it’s a Saturday night, right? And you’re at a party?” The voice, with its soft British accent, comes from a shadowy area on the edge of the garden. Harry, sitting on the wide stone ledge of the garden wall. 

Dan’s pulse quickens just slightly. “’You’re at a party,’ says the person sitting alone in the dark.”

Harry’s jaw falls open, his laugh escaping. “Care to join me then?”

“Um. Sure,” he says, and then introduces himself so he doesn’t have to find out if Harry remembers who he is.

Harry’s coat is splayed beneath him and he scoots over to make room. Dan lowers himself to the slick inner lining and tries to ignore that he’s about to sit right on the Gucci label.

Harry is more relaxed than he was backstage, which helps Dan relax. “I saw the _Falling_ video yesterday. It’s so good,” Dan blurts. So it doesn’t help that much.

“Thank you,” Harry says, and he has the audacity to be shy about it. “I’m quite pleased with it.”

“You—You should be.”

“And you’re an actor?” Harry seems like he’s guessing.

“A writer.” Dan looks for something to do with his hands and ends up clasping them in his lap. “Well I also act. And direct. I’m a showrunner.” _And an idiot._

“You’re busy,” Harry says, his long mouth curving up, easy and gentle. _Relax, Daniel._

“I—Yes,” Dan agrees.

“What’s the show again?”

“It’s called Schitt’s Creek.”

“Oh, right. Sorry, I haven’t seen it.”

“Oh god, I mean it’s just a little show we made in Canada.” Harry nods and looks back towards the windows of the house, the party illuminated within. He coughs, a tad awkwardly. Dan could leave it there. Quit while he’s ahead. But honestly… “I’m. I’m actually very proud of it.”

Harry’s face splits into a grin. It makes him look younger. Freer. Then he moves, just barely, but enough to unsettle Dan in a completely different way. It’s a subtle turn toward Dan, an opening up. Dan is drawn in. 

“Is it still airing?” Harry asks, and Dan notices a bit of fuzz on his shoulder from his coat. He wants to sweep it off, but doesn’t. 

“The finale is the first week of April.”

“Hm. Weird to be done?”

Reporters have been asking some version of that question for months. But not like that, not with that wide, curious gaze that says the only part of the answer that matters is the part that matters to Dan.

“It is. I worked on that show every single day for the last six years. And now it’s just…” Dan makes a gesture in front of him with a low _poof_ sound. Dan doesn’t know how else to describe the feeling of extended loss, of grieving something one script, one table read, one scene, one edit, one episode, one interview at a time. How all-encompassing it has been.

“So now you have to figure out who you are without it.” Harry tips his head to the side, a swing of his hair falling over his forehead.

“Um. I think I know that? It’s more the continual fear of people trying to decide for me. But sure.” Dan tries to make it into a joke, and Harry laughs, but his eyes are sympathetic. Dan thinks again about brushing the fuzz off his shoulder

“Oh just that. Well that’s nothing. You just tell them no.” Harry grins again, sweeps his fallen hair back into the tangle, his rings catching the golden light from the windows.

“Oh, is that all?” 

“Always worked for me.” 

“You’re _you_ ,” Dan says, his voice pitching higher while his hands gesture helplessly toward Harry, hair wild, teal shirt buttoned only half way, a string of costume pearls around his neck. Daring, goofy, gorgeous. 

Harry just laughs again with an easy shrug, and Dan reaches for the fuzz on his shoulder. As Dan plucks delicately at the fabric of his shirt, Harry watches with a dry heat, the kind that doesn’t feel hot until you try to move. 

“So who are you without it, then?” 

Dan swallows and realizes he’s still holding the bit of fuzz. Drops it. “Did I seem confident before? Because now it feels like that answer will take all night.”

“That’s fine with me. I’ve got nowhere to be until three o’clock tomorrow.” As he says it, he leans closer, a challenge in his eye.

It doesn’t take all night to answer him, but they talk for another hour. Then two. Then three. He asks follow-ups and tells stories and pokes at Dan a little, but never in the really sensitive spots. Dan gets brave enough to ask his own questions, things he’s always wanted to know. It’s surreal, but Dan is getting used to the ever-present, upside-down, what-even-is-my-life feeling.

It should make it harder that Harry doesn’t ever pretend to be normal, but it actually makes it easier. He listens with his whole body, leaning in, nodding along. He doesn’t pretend that they’re the same; he seems hyper-aware of how he got here, like he knows it’s not like that for everyone. And still they find common ground. The choice to let go of something that is overwhelmingly successful when it stops challenging you. The struggle to sort through your brain, your heart, and identify what the next thing should be. The way your biggest successes boost and shade your subsequent ones in turn. The complexities of growing into something new. Of convincing people to come with you.

Dan talks about the constant pressure for more. For a movie. A limited series. A reboot. A reunion.“Yeah in my experience that doesn’t go away,” Harry says wryly. “Which I suppose is flattering, but.” He circles his hand in the air helplessly and Dan knows exactly what he means.

At one point he crosses his legs and ends up kicking Dan by accident, they’ve moved so close together. His hand falls warm and sure on Dan’s thigh as he apologizes, and Dan wonders, not for the first time, if he’s flirting. 

“I still feel like this can’t be happening,” Dan says, so quiet, like a confession. It must be pushing two in the morning. He’s tired. Words are slipping right out.

Thankfully, Harry misinterprets. “It’s amazing how much is due to luck and timing, yeah?”

Dan nods, but when he turns to look at Harry, he’s not sure he misinterpreted at all. His eyes are dark as he smiles, the long curve of his mouth tilting confidently. 

“Would it be alright if I kissed you?” Harry asks. 

Dan tries, and fails, to be smooth about his answer. “Um. Sure.”

“Okay,” Harry says, and then he _doesn’t_ kiss him. 

Dan isn’t sure he likes the way Harry keeps throwing him off balance. No he is sure. He likes it. “So that was just, like, an ‘in theory’ question?”

“Well I didn’t want to do it right then when you’d be expecting it!” 

_God what is this night?_ “Of course not. So um. What were you doing alone outside anyway?” Dan asks. 

“It’s a party trick I have. Got a thing for workaholics and I find this draws them right out.”

“I see,” Dan says, and now he’s laughing with Harry. “Well. Congratulations. You found one.”

“I did.” 

Somehow he’s forgotten the question about the kiss until Harry leans in. He pauses, close enough that Dan can feel his breath when he murmurs, “Surprise.” His lips are warm, sure, still curved in a smile. Dan smiles too, the rest of his anxieties melting away as Harry’s mouth and then his hands warm him. 

It’s been so long since Dan has kissed anyone new. Wasn’t sure he wanted to. But it feels amazing. New and different and easy. Everything feels easy. Harry grins as he leans away enough to check in, easy. There’s a question in his eye, and Dan answers it by surging forward. Harry smells good, and he feels good. Dan’s hand wraps around his head, hair soft between his fingers. Harry’s hands are hot on his thighs, inching upwards as they kiss. It’s breathless, eager, easy. 

Harry slows them, his thumbs pressing into Dan’s inseams, and Dan tries to unclench his hands from his hair, from his shirt. “I probably shouldn’t do this here.” His lips ghost along the hinge of Dan’s jaw. “Don’t know everyone in there.”

“Right. Um.”

“Not that I wouldn’t love to.” 

“I should hope so, since it was your idea.” Harry’s body shakes with his laugh, still pressed against Dan’s. The puff of breath hits Dan’s pulse point and sends heat jetting through him again. 

“What are you doing tomorrow?” Harry asks. 

“Nothing.” That can’t be true. “Fuck. I have a dinner,” Dan says, still trying to catch up, catch his breath, catch his racing heart. Catch the words from flying out of his mouth without his permission.

“A dinner or a _dinner_?”

“Business. Should be done by eight.”

“Shall we say nine then? Your place?” Harry asks. 

Dan nods, then reaches for his phone. “Should I. Um. How do I send you my address?”

Harry takes the phone, then enters his phone number under a new contact for Mick Greenley. “I have to go. Send it to me.”

He kisses Dan again, quick, hot and then leaves with a grin and a wave. From this vantage point, Dan can see him work his way back through the party, exchanging hugs with a few people, kissing Kacey on the cheek. He leaves out the front door before Dan remembers to breathe again.

Dan rubs his face into his palms. This whole thing is… what? Surreal? Wild? Wonderful. Stupid too, probably. Saying goodbye to Noah didn’t make it any easier to move on. But this is the best he’s felt since Noah left, and he promised himself to chase that feeling if he finds it.

This is not the direction he expected to chase it, though. Harry is ten years younger, an enigma, and a fucking superstar. Dan doesn’t even know if he’s been with men before. What is he looking for? Why on earth does he think Dan can offer it? Dan looks at the contact in his phone. If he doesn’t send the address soon, he’ll probably end up sending an excuse instead. This is the kind of shit that he wouldn’t have thought twice about before Noah. Before he knew what it was like to have someone know him everywhere they lay their hands.

When he gets enough wherewithal to walk back into the party, he realizes he’s still sitting on Harry’s Gucci coat. Dan picks it up. It smells like him, looks like him too. Color and texture and pattern, a specific sort of mystery, a life of its own. Dan tries to tuck it discreetly under his arm and goes to say goodnight to Kacey. He looks at Harry’s coat again, sitting on the passenger seat next to him and shakes his head. 

Then he takes a picture of the coat and sends it with his address and a quick message before he can think any more about it. 

_You left your coat. Come get it tomorrow or I’m keeping it._

Dan’s house is usually tidy, but he picks up anyway. Puts Red’s leash back in the drawer instead of leaving it on the counter. Plucks the browning lemon out of the bowl on the island. Straightens the stacks of books here and there and tucks papers away in his office. Checks the bathrooms for toilet paper and soap and fresh towels. Tries to think of all the other things his mother would do when last-minute company was coming. 

He runs to the store before his meeting to restock on snacks and drinks and whatever else it seems like he should have around as he paces up and down the aisles. He’s never had someone over to the house who he didn’t already know pretty well. He would do this sometimes in Toronto, but it was easier there. Just show them the view, give them some wine, talk a little until everyone was comfortable, and then. Get on with it. 

In the end, it’s not that different with Harry. Harry asks if he can give Redmond a treat, and then spends ten minutes rubbing his belly and scratching his ears. He lets Harry pick the music, lets Harry kiss the red in his cheeks when he sees _Fine Line_ on his recently played list, and tries not to be too embarrassed about it.

“I have One Direction tunes on my workout playlist,” Harry says. “Turn them up when they play, too.” Dan isn’t sure if he’s being serious or just trying to make him feel better, but it’s painfully endearing either way. 

Harry takes an appreciative look at the backyard while Dan lets Red out for his final break of the evening and suggests they sit out on the patio with their drinks. Early March is not exactly patio weather by most LA standards, but they’re both used to colder places. 

Dan asks him about his day, which feels like a weird thing to ask Harry Styles, but he’s trying not to think of him as _Harry Styles_. He’s hooked up with people before who know his TV personality better than they know him. Especially back in the MTV days. He knows what it’s like to kiss someone, fuck someone, wondering what part of him they want, wondering who they think he is. He doesn’t want to do that to Harry. He tries to focus on what he knows. Tries to learn what he can that’s specific to here. Now. 

When they go to put the empty bottle and glasses away, Dan is feeling more steady despite the warm buzz from the wine. Harry leans against the island and looks at him, eyebrow raised, and Dan crosses to him. Kisses him slowly, letting the heat build. Harry’s hands work their way under his sweater, soft against his lower back, a finger hooking into a belt loop to pull Dan closer. 

“Should we talk. Um. Just about like. Specifics?”

“Say stop if you want to stop and I will,” Harry says, with that easy shrug of his. “And I have to know you better if you want to fuck me.”

“Have you ever… been with… um.” He wants to say _a man_. It’s not like the answer would change his plans. It might change how gentle he is about them, though.

“Someone as old as you? Yeah of course.” Harry’s left dimple pops with his crooked smile and Dan smiles too. Caught up in it. Harry pushes a leg between Dan’s, applying not quite enough pressure. 

“Oh my god,” Dan says, dropping his head to his shoulder, the exasperated laughter sneaking out. 

“Hey,” Harry says, dropping his leg and pressing a chaste kiss to his jaw. Then another. “We can talk more first if you like.”

His hair is already everywhere from Dan’s hands, his shirt untucked and mostly unbuttoned, his smile still wide. Easy. Dan puts a hand on his ass and tugs him closer until he has friction right where he needs it. 

“Say stop if you want to stop and I will,” Dan says. “And I have to know you better if you want to fuck me.”

“Next time, then.” He grins. And then he’s back, serious, seeking. “I’ll need you to show me the bedroom.”

Dan shows him up the stairs—there must be twice as many steps as usual—and then into his room. 

Harry sheds his pants as they walk, undoes Dan’s as they kiss. The clothes fall in a jumbled heap of designer fashion until Harry pushes Dan onto the bed and straddles his hips, his dick already half-hard. 

Harry is so different from him. All the embodied energy of a coiled spring, ruthlessly groomed with the exception of the top of his head, polished nails in dry nail beds, a bone-deep comfort in his skin that Dan envies, a face that slides so easily into a smile. He’s unblemished apart from the tattoos scattered across him, some stranger than others but all beautiful in aggregate. There’s something about the tattoos that makes it impossible to ignore who he’s in bed with, and he lets his fingertips trace the butterfly on his stomach. Harry huffs a laugh and folds in half, trapping Dan’s fingers under him. 

“You cannot do that. It tickles.”

When Harry sits up, Dan tries again, lower, along a leaf above his hip, and Harry takes his wrists in his hands, his long fingers wrapping all the way around as he presses them back into the sheets. 

“Do I have to make you leave your hands here?” he asks.

Dan generally likes the upper hand until he knows someone well, but there’s something about this, about being stuck under his hands, in his gaze, that is really working for him. 

“I’ll be good,” he says slowly, and Harry smiles and kisses him. 

He feels the nerves bubbling up again, shuts them out by flipping Harry onto his back and kissing him until his mouth opens and invites Dan in. Dan lets himself linger as much as he can, let’s himself enjoy the smooth glide of their tongues, the teasing way Harry kisses, the way, even trapped beneath him, he refuses to submit, pushing Dan’s head where he wants it, broad palms cupping Dan’s jaw. When Dan takes too long to give him what he wants, he starts taking it himself, arching his back and pressing his hips into Dan’s, thrusting against the soft skin of his belly and then pushing Dan down by his shoulders so their dicks make blinding, aching contact. 

Harry already told him he’s leaving for New York tomorrow, and then on to London. This is probably a first and last time. Dan is good with his hands, but he’s better with his mouth. That’s all he wants anyway, to take Harry in his mouth and give him everything he has, so if they ever cross paths again, Dan won’t have to remind him who he is.

Harry is fully hard by the time he works his way down, rolling his nipples with his tongue, sucking gently and then harder as Harry keens into it. He marks the soft skin below the wings of the butterfly and Harry’s hands fly to his head, kneading into his hair, along his neck, down his back, encouraging, wanting. Dan noses his way to his dick, takes it into his mouth, toys with it until his powerful voice is a breathless chorus of moans and pleas and groans.

Dan lifts his leg over his shoulder so he has access to more of him, and takes Harry deeper into his mouth, smooth and probably just a little less pressure than he would like because he can feel Harry’s hips shaking with the effort not to thrust. He pushes a hand under one of his cheeks, fingers making indentations along the crack, and invites him to move. Dan slows him down, not ready for it to end, and tilts his head to look back up at him. 

The view laid out in front of him is all white sheets and black ink and skin pink with wanting. His mouth parts, a low, breathy, “Dan,” and Dan takes pity on him, sinking lower, faster, sucking harder, giving him what he wants. He comes and comes, and Dan takes it all, watches it all. It doesn’t matter anymore if Harry remembers. Dan won’t forget this.

Harry yanks Dan up by his shoulders and kisses him, looks for his taste, and Dan tastes the praise on his tongue too. They turn as they kiss until Harry is on top of him, sucking a bruise into the base of his throat.

This is probably never happening again, so Dan tries to hang on, make it last, as Harry works him over slowly, leaving kisses and bites along his neck, his shoulders, his chest. He presses a thumb into his nipple, the nail bed turning white around the vibrant blue of his nail, and then licks it, slow, easy. His hair tickles Dan’s chest, and Dan cards his hands through it, pushing it away from his face. He tugs a little, just to see, and Harry closes his eyes with a moan. And fuck, Dan needs to do that again. Harry takes off two of his rings and then slides his finger into his mouth to capture the third between his lips. It’s obscene and he knows it, giving Dan the look that says something like _I’m going to destroy you and have the best time of it._

“You are,” Dan responds, and doesn’t realize he said it out loud until Harry asks, “I am what?”

“Just.” Gorgeous isn’t quite it. It’s too polished for this, for the way Harry makes his nerves leap to the surface of his skin, all right there, needing more and more and more of him. “Stunning.” 

“Thanks.” Harry smiles while he licks his hand and closes it around Dan with a tug, pulling whatever Dan was going to say next back into the moan chasing up his throat. 

It’s ridiculous. It’s a hand job. It’s a _hand job_ and Dan has to squeeze with his own hand over Harry’s to keep from coming. Harry’s hands aren’t soft but he knows how to use their roughness to his advantage, when to let up on the pressure, when to stroke, how fast. Dan’s hands scrabble for his hair, for his shoulders, squeezing, pulling, and his mouth says too many things without his permission. Embarrassing things that he tries to bury in _fuck_ and _yes_ and _Harry._

Dan is nearly there, the promise of release beginning to thrum along his skin, when Harry lets go. The loss is brutal, and Dan sits up to chase after him. It’s not necessary. Harry’s hands push him back down, unyielding against his chest, and then his mouth is around him, hot, perfect, until Dan is deep in his throat and he is _gone_. Harry pushes his hair out of his eyes when he sits up, his tongue catching a little extra from the corner of his mouth before lowering himself over Dan. 

He smiles, closed-mouthed, and noses along Dan’s jaw until Dan invites him closer, kisses him, strokes his shoulders, breathes in the smells of tea and mint. It’s been way too long since he let himself soak in the blissed out pleasure of someone just because they feel good against him. 

Dan closes his eyes, lets Harry kiss him, the kisses growing softer, gentler, steadier, less hungry.

“Do you want to go for a drive?” Harry asks, fingers tracing idly up and down the center of his chest, rising and falling more slowly now that his breaths are evening out. 

“Now?” Dan asks. 

Harry grins at the ceiling and turns back to him. 

“Yeah why not?”

It’s a fair question. So. “Okay. Sure.”

They sort out their clothes and slip back into them. Dan gets himself a water bottle and offers one to Harry, which he takes gratefully. Dan lets himself watch him drink it.

They drive up the Pacific Coast Highway toward Malibu. Harry tunes the radio to one of the oldies stations and sings along with Gladys Knight. He’s clowning around on the vocals and popping his shoulders as much as he can while still keeping the car in drive and it’s beautiful. Every movement. Every word.

“Gonna sing with me on the next one, Dan?” he asks while the late night DJ is chattering. Yelling over the air rushing past the convertible, he sounds like he does on stage, joy-filled and dynamic.

“Oh I don’t think—”

“C’mon!” He elbows Dan. “The wind’ll eat it.”

“It’s not eating yours.”

“Well I’m a professional singer!” he yells matter-of-factly before tapping the steering wheel along with the opening bars of _Bad Reputation._

“Yes that’s my point,” Dan argues, but he joins him, reluctantly at first and then with everything he has, which is basically a metaphor for his approach to Harry. They wail into the night, the ocean flying by on the west side of the car and the wind most certainly turning his hair into a matted nest. 

Harry turns the volume down when the song ends and takes a deep breath. He very obviously does not compliment Dan’s voice, which Dan sort of loves. 

“There’s something I rather like about just carrying on with someone singing something that could not be farther from how you feel,” he laughs. Dan studies him, thinking about the chorus of _Bad Reptutation_. “Don’t get me wrong, I love the ones where it’s like ‘that’s it, that’s how to describe the feeling I’ve been drowning in.’ But it’s so freeing to borrow someone else’s point of view for a bit.”

Dan keeps watching him, the night turning his skin blue. Harry flicks a look sideways and catches him watching. As he turns his eyes back to the road, Dan thinks he sees a small smile on his face. 

“It’s a pity I have to leave for New York tomorrow,” he says.

Dan doesn’t know him well enough to know if he means it or if it’s just a nice thing to say. “Well. You have my number.”

“I do. Made a contact for you and everything. ‘Dan Levy—Not the Comedian.’”

“Mmm. That is very flattering.”

“I meet a lot of people. Don’t want to get you confused. Imagine if next time I’m in town I rang the other one.”

“Might be better.”

“Maybe, but alas I think he’s married.” 

“Alas.” Dan just grins and shakes his head. He’s starting to get used to Harry’s roundabout way of saying _I like you._

“C’mon then,” he says, pulling off at the next exit to turn back. “Sing with me on the way home.”

If March hadn’t changed everything, hadn’t rearranged friends and upended plans and held everything and everyone in place, that probably would have been it. By the end of April, that night feels like it was years ago. 

So when Dan checks his phone after another Zoom interview, he frowns at the name in his notifications, Mick Greenley, until he places it. Harry. 

_I’m shocked. England is lovely!_

Dan has no clue what that means. Hasn’t heard from him since the night in LA. He sends a bunch of question marks.

_Sorry—watching your show. Alexis didn’t move to “some random island” with me because it was too rainy. Frankly, I’m offended._

Dan grins at his phone like an idiot for a not-insignificant amount of time. _Should I issue a public apology?_

_I’ll accept a private one._

_My sincerest apologies for besmirching your beloved homeland in the name of comedy._

_*sniff* Thanks, mate._

Even though they haven’t been in touch, Dan has been thinking about Harry a lot through all of this, ever since he found out he postponed the European leg of his tour. He’s probably already thinking about postponing more dates. All the performers Dan knows are sort of fumbling around, looking for other ways to stay sane. To stay busy. He’s talked to Noah a couple of times and even Noah, steady as he is, can’t quite keep the disappointment out of his voice. 

The unexpected downtime is probably why Harry has time to watch Dan’s show at all. Lots of people seem to be doing it now. It might have nothing to do with Dan. But. It might.

 _How are you?_ Harry’s next message makes his smile wider. 

_Fine. Comparatively._

_And non-comparatively?_

Dan sags his shoulders and rakes a hand through his too-long hair. The truth is, he is fine. So many people have it so much worse. He’s safe, his loved ones are safe, and they managed to make everything work, the finale, press, even some bonus fundraising. But that doesn’t mean it hasn’t been hard, losing all the plans they had for the finale, losing that time with his dad, with the cast. Even the double-edged sword of seeing Noah again. He thinks if anyone might understand that weird, self-stunted feeling of grief, it’s Harry. 

_Depends on the day._

_Yeah._

Dan types a few different questions before settling on, _You?_

 _Dunno. Hard to complain._

_You can if you need to._

To his surprise, the phone rings. 

“Harry. Hi.” In the background, he hears the low brassy march of the Schitt’s Creek end credits before they’re switched off. A surge of warmth rushes through him.

“Hallo. I was— I thought this might be easier.”

“Sure. Hi.”

“Hi. Sorry I didn’t call sooner.”

“I didn’t really expect you to,” Dan says, which is true enough. “Especially given how fast the world sort of… you know.” 

“I know. How are you doing really though? Are you quarantining with anyone?”

“Just my friend. Stacey. She’s moving this weekend though. You?”

“I came back to LA recently actually, to try to get the single releases and tour stuff rearranged. On my last few days of the two week quarantine.”

Dan scrunches his face up as he asks, “Are you quarantining with anyone?”

“Not yet. I have a night guard but I’m trying to keep away from him so he can be with his own family, you know. I might get a pod together with a few friends soon. Wait what do you mean she’s moving?”

“Oh, just that her lease ended and she was staying with me until she closed on her new place. So I’m helping her move this weekend.”

“As in moving furniture and whatnot?”

“Oh no, people already did that. Just the boxes she has at my place.”

“Need help?”

It’s such a strange offer, and yet in some weird way it’s exactly what he would expect based on what he knows of Harry. “Are you volunteering your night guard?” Dan asks.

“Course not. I’ll come help you if you want. Make quicker work of it. I have to get out of here.”

Stacey doesn’t have that much stuff but it would be nice to have help. Fuck it would be nice to just see someone else. So he agrees. 

They talk for a while longer. It has the same kind of effect it had the first night, calming while at the same time making Dan’s skin hot. 

Red comes in and droops his head at his feet. “If you want to hang on, I need to walk my dog. I’ll just switch to headphones.

“Oh that’s okay. I should let you go,” Harry says. “Bet he’s happy to have you around more.”

“Yeah. Small upsides.”

“Small upsides,” Harry agrees. “Before you go. What are the chances I’m going to be crying by the end of this?”

“By the end of the move?”

Harry laughs, and the laughter brings Dan right back to that night in his bed. “No. The show. I’m about to start the bachelor party.”

“Oh. Well.” Dan takes a minute to think about it.

“Nevermind. Your silence says it all. Prepare a box of tissues, Harry.” Dan laughs at that.

“I will say if you don’t like cliffhangers you’ll want to watch episodes twelve and thirteen in a row.”

“Fair enough. I’m pushing straight through once my dinner finishes cooking. Enjoy your walk with your dog.”

“Will do. And. See you Saturday.”

“See you Saturday.”

Dan has finally managed to move his brain onto something else when the text message comes through. _Oh sure, Alexis has a grand time in England with Tom Hardy. smh_

Dan shakes his head too, and smiles so wide his cheeks hurt. 

Harry is a pain in the ass, Stacey is the worst friend, and by the time they leave Stacey in her new apartment, Dan is feeling soft and fond for both of them. 

Harry arrived on moving day in joggers and sneakers, which still managed to be infuriatingly hot, and Stacey spent the day making unhelpful observations that were designed to work Dan up and win Harry’s affections. She was successful on both counts.

Harry helped load Dan’s SUV and wiggled into a spot for himself among the boxes in the back for the ride to Stacey’s. Dan snuck looks in the rearview mirror, never not surprised to see him there. He tapped his fingers along to Beyonce and Lizzo while they drove, singing under his breath, lost in the beat. Harry transforms when music is playing, like it shifts him into another gear.

They made quick work of unloading, Harry squirreling around more than helping. He joked around with both of them, put boxes in the wrong rooms on purpose, danced across the kitchen floor while he unpacked enough for them to eat dinner, and found excuses to touch Dan along the way. A squeeze to his hip as he passed in the hall, a grin as he straightened Dan’s toque on his head, a bite to Dan’s shoulder blade when he crouched behind him out of view of the Postmates delivery person. 

Harry insisted on helping set up the TV before they left, frowning at the cables and cords and rearranging them until he declared victory with a fist pumping the air, his bicep tensing. 

Stacey grinned at Dan and said, “It’s nice to have someone around who knows how to use their hands.”

Harry, of course, caught on. “Thanks, love.”

“You know you can still miss Noah and let yourself have this,” she murmured to Dan as she hugged him goodbye. Dan nodded. He’d been telling himself as much all day.

Once Stacey finally kicked them out, Dan turned on the car to drive Harry back to his house, and left the radio volume on low. 

“Is Noah the one from the show?” Harry asks carefully. “The musician?” 

“You heard that.” It’s not a question. Obviously he did. Still, Dan smiles privately at what Noah would say if he heard Harry call him _the musician_. 

“Nevermind. Sorry. I don’t need to know.” He squeezes his hands on his thighs and releases them, like he’s trying to let it go. 

“It’s the same Noah, yeah.” Because why not? “After the show wrapped, we started dating, sort of, for a year. But then I moved here full time and he hates LA so. We decided to take a break.”

“Because of geography?” Harry asks. 

No. Yes. Maybe. It’s weird now, with the way everything has changed, to try to make sense of choices that were reasoned in a different world. “Sort of.”

“But you miss him.”

“Yes.”

“Okay,” he says, and then he cups Dan’s shoulder with his hand, and Dan blinks away the tears that sting his eyes. Harry changes the subject. “So you’re working on the next thing. How is that going?”

“It feels weird, in a way, because I have more time to write than ever. But I just feel like I can’t get anywhere now. When I wrote the show, I had such a clear idea of where we were headed. I don’t know. Maybe it’s just a second project thing.” _Maybe the first project was a fluke,_ his brain nags, and he tries to shush it. 

“The second album was a little harder to write for me. I had a good head start, but then I’d get caught up sometimes in like, what is this saying that I haven’t already said, you know? It was so much easier to get in my head. I sort of gave up on it for a bit and went to Japan for a month. But it’s so hard to know, when you’re trying to make something, if you need to add more pressure or back it off.”

“Yeah,” Dan says. “And right now, there aren’t many ways to adjust the pressure in either direction.”

“I could take your mind off it for a couple weeks if it would help,” Harry says, like he’s just being a nice guy. Dan glances at him to see how serious he is. He’s serious. It’s there in his grin, tongue pressing on his dimple, eyes shining.

“Just out of the goodness of your heart?” Dan pushes, attuned to the game by now.

“Yeah. Of course. It’s not like I’d be getting nothing out of it, is it? Christ, Dan, the nights I’ve replayed last time.” Maybe Harry knows exactly what he’s doing here.

Dan grins back and shakes his head. “I was just—” Dan takes a breath and starts again. “I’m not in a place for something serious right now.”

“Okay,” Harry says, nodding thoughtfully. “Well your friend is right. You can miss him and have this if you want it. I don’t know what place I’m in, if I’m honest. But I figure worst case you’ll break my heart and I can write a whole album about it.”

He’s joking. Dan is pretty sure. But just in case. “Oh god that is definitely the worst case. Hopefully I won’t give you quite enough for an album about me.”

Harry starts humming an anonymous tune. “I didn’t say about _you._ About it. The heartbreak.”

“That still sounds like it’s about me though.”

“Maybe a little bit.” Harry laughs. “I think you’re probably safe, though. Even if it is about you, everyone will think it’s about someone else.” Harry twists his mouth, biting the inside of his lip, ever-so-briefly losing his grip on the thread of happiness that seems to hold him together. Dan lets the silence eat up another mile towards his house. 

“Sometimes it scares me how dependent I am on them.” Harry’s voice is quieter now, and scattered with gravel.

“On who?” 

“The audience. When I’m performing, it’s like… Like the song is finally finished. The last piece falls into place among the crowd. But it feels weird not to have the other piece of it now. Like I’ll lose touch with the songs eventually, without someone to play them to.”

“Well if all you need is someone to play them to…” Dan says and Harry laughs. Then he leans over at the next light and kisses him, warm and sweet.

“I don’t think there are many people who can keep the audience completely out of their work. I know I can’t,” Dan admits after a few quiet minutes. “If no one wants what I make, then I don’t get to make it.”

“Yeah. I always think about how Bowie said that you make your worst work when you try to make it for other people. But it doesn’t make it easier to ignore them. ‘Cause I don’t want it to end, you know?”

Dan nods as he turns into his driveway and parks. “I do know.”

Harry comes in to get the coat he never took last time, but he presses Dan up against the front hall closet door and kisses him boneless before he takes him upstairs, and the coat stays where it’s been hanging since February.

It’s been two weeks since Stacey moved. Harry has been here more nights than not, and they’ve been talking, laughing, watching movies, arguing about music, along with fucking. Harry is funny. Charming. Sweet. And merciless. 

“No,” Harry says, popping off and pointing a stern finger at Dan, who needs to come like he needs to breathe. “I haven’t even gotten to the good part.”

“You have,” Dan whines. “You have. You did. Already. Please.”

“Just look at you.” He follows his own advice, an appraising glance from head to toe, and Dan is not seriously about to come from a look. He’s not. He’s _not._ Harry grins and slides a lubricated fingertip around the head of Dan’s cock, yellow polish nearly chipped off, and the orgasm rakes him from one end to the other, disorienting and ruthless. 

It surprises them both. Dan opens his eyes to see Harry’s mouth fixed into a laughing, smug O shape. “That was amazing,” Harry says, lowering himself until he has Dan pinned, ignoring the mess of their come still wet between them. “Fuck, Dan.”

“Fuck,” Dan agrees, yanking him down, kissing him, still trying to figure out which way is up. 

He’s still feeling fucked-out and woozy five minutes later when his phone alert goes off. Harry nuzzles into his chest but doesn’t move to get off him. Harry’s stubble scratches pleasantly at Dan’s chest when he reaches for his phone. 

“Shit. I have an interview in a half hour,” he says to himself, to Harry. The campaign for Emmy nominations has kept him busier than he expected. 

Harry usually goes home when Dan has to work, but this time he doesn’t budge. “Okay if I just disappear to the patio for a bit?” he asks instead, lips soft and wet on Dan’s collarbone. 

“I’d like that,” he says, and means it. It’s nice to imagine Harry sticking around, fumbling around in the kitchen to make dinner together, maybe watching a movie with him tonight. “But now you have to get off me so I can shower.”

Harry follows him into the large tiled shower and cleans himself with an endearing lack of focus, drawing pictures in the steam collecting on the glass door and patting the wrong kind of soap into Dan’s cheeks. 

“Stop it,” Dan says, swatting him away, laughing and ducking from another attempt. “You’re wasting water.”

“Tsk tsk,” Harry grins with a shake of his head as he takes a generous pump of Dan’s shampoo and begins washing his own hair. 

“That’s way too much,” Dan practically moans, because the way Harry looks after—or rather doesn’t look after—his hair is a crime. Dan takes as much of the suds as he can into his own hands and rinses them before returning to finish the job, combing the remaining shampoo into his hair. Harry tips his head forward so Dan can reach it easier and groans when he digs his fingers into his scalp. Dan smiles to himself. 

Dan has been in limited-term relationships, but never like this. Never with someone who isn’t afraid to invest, isn’t afraid to attach, someone who is content with giving whatever he has to offer and doesn’t need more or ask for less in return. It’s been the greatest gift.

“All done,” Dan says, patting his shoulder, and his voice must sound odd because Harry looks up suddenly. 

He tips his head, looks at Dan the way he does sometimes, like he can read his mind. The kiss he offers is tender and fragile, lips brushing, the water pouring down between them. “Thanks for saving me from what was sure to be an utter disaster.”

“Glad I could help,” Dan says as he turns the water off. 

They towel off and Dan mutters about the state of his own hair as he attempts to blow dry it into submission. 

“Here,” Harry says, taking the brush and the blow dryer. He stands behind Dan in his underwear, muscles flexing and face frowning at Dan’s hair as he tries to convince it to submit to a frizz-free pseudo-pompadour. 

“Want me to trim up your neck?” he asks, brushing his fingers through the fuzz below Dan’s normal, groomed hairline. 

Dan just nods, because it would be hard to make it worse at this point, and Harry plugs in the beard trimmer from his toiletries bag. 

It’s things like this that make it easy to forget how much younger he is. For all that he can be extremely goofy, he’s serious when it matters. He understands these small intimacies, the difference between infatuation and care.

When he turns off the trimmer, he kisses Dan’s cheek from behind and wraps his arms around his stomach. “You look very handsome,” he says, with that totally genuine and totally joking balance he’s perfected.

Looking at the mirror, hair somewhat more presentable, the tickle at the back of his neck gone, still blissed out from being toyed with and fucked, Dan can’t keep from smiling. “I’m going gray.”

“You are,” he murmurs into Dan’s neck, his hair dripping wet onto Dan’s chest. “You’re going to be a gross, wrinkly old man soon. Don’t worry, I’ll still shag you if you can’t get it up.”

Dan laughs and pokes his arm until he lets him go, moving to the closet to finish getting ready. 

It strikes Dan that Noah never would have said something like that. He is too attuned to Dan’s insecurities. Too quick to ease them. Normally, Dan loves that, the way his confidence in Dan spills over, floods Dan as well. Harry doesn’t know Dan well enough to tell him his brain is lying. Or maybe he’s just more accustomed to the pressure of expectations. He gives all of Dan’s insecurities air, and they evaporate into the afternoon sunlight. 

The interview goes much like they all do. Although this time, when they ask what he’s working on, he doesn’t feel the same aching dread. Having Harry around is helping adjust the pressure, and the words are flowing again. 

The reporter talks about what the show has meant to her and her wife personally, seeing a happy queer relationship on screen, which he never gets tired of hearing. When Dan finally turns off the computer, he’s tired from smiling and thinking of answers, but he feels good. He feels really good.

He finds Harry outside sitting on one of the lounge chairs by the pool, naked except for the swimming trunks Dan let him borrow.

“How’d it go?”

“Good. It’s nice when they know the show. They ask better questions.”

Harry sits up and crosses his legs in front of him to make room for Dan. “Do you ever get tired of being treated as, like, a spokesperson for gay people?”

It’s a bit out of the blue, but Dan can tell he really wants to know. “I don’t think so? Sometimes the questions are repetitive, and I feel like my answers are boring or not… meaningful enough, I guess. But then I think about what it was like as a kid to wish for happy stories. When I was older too. If that means I have to answer the same questions until more people understand we’re not a tragedy, then I guess I’m okay with that.”

Harry nods and looks out over the sun-drenched backyard. Dan can see his tongue pressing into the side of his cheek. “Do you think I’m selfish for not wanting to talk about my sexuality in interviews and stuff?” His accent is heavier, the way it gets when he’s emotional or tired or both, so stuff sounds like stoof. 

“Honestly?” Dan asks. 

Harry turns and looks at him with cloudy green eyes. Nods. 

“You’re— I mean you’re Harry Styles. I can only imagine how much it would mean to have someone like you talk about who you are on a personal level like that. But I think. I think you do say who you are already. Just by the way you carry yourself. There’s so much value in that, too, in disagreeing with the premise that it’s anyone’s business but your own.”

“My longest relationship was with someone in London,” he says. “We were young, and in love, and scared by it, I think. It’s why London feels more like home than anywhere. He still lives there. We keep in touch a bit even though we broke up a couple of years ago. It’s hard, with my job. Sometimes I wonder if we’d still be together if we’d just met a few years later, if the world would have shifted just enough to make room for us.”

Dan puts a hand on the nape of his neck and squeezes. Harry seems so comfortable sharing his corners and edges, but he’s never spoken of any of his past relationships. Dan doesn’t know who he’s talking about, but he can see that they matter. A lot. 

He swipes tears from his eyes and turns to look at Dan, lashes wet, eyes shining. Harry scratches his knee above one of his tattoos and nods thoughtfully. He clears his throat a few times and stands up, adjusting himself in the swimming trunks. “Anyway, I guess this is me saying thanks. For the way you let people make it their business. It's probably why I don’t have to.” He squeezes Dan’s shoulder hard before walking back into the house. 

At the beginning of June, Harry comes over to watch a movie. They queue up _Pretty Woman_ , which he’s seen twice before. Dan has lost track of how many times he’s seen it, so it’s easy for them to trade lazy kisses while they watch without missing anything important. Dan made popcorn, which Harry tosses up into the air and catches in his mouth. He gets every one, and it’s not as annoying as it should be. 

Dan is a little distracted from the movie anyway. He and Noah talked for the first time in a month that morning. Noah was at his parents’ lake house, and he’d FaceTimed for no reason. Just to check in. Dan has tried to avoid the interviews and press he’s been doing for his album, so he was unprepared for the tangle of curls jutting out at all angles, for the familiar mellow in Noah’s voice, for the familiar way his hand covered his mouth when he was thinking through an answer, for the way his laugh came light and easy and warm across the distance.

He didn’t tell him about Harry. He didn’t know what he would say. 

The thing about Harry is, it should work. Dan has never laughed more than he has the last few weeks. They whisper secrets in the night and Dan feels more brave than he ever has, pressed up against all of Harry’s confidence. Even though they’re very different types of artists, Dan has never been able to talk to someone like this about the process of making. Together they bemoan the brash and fickle surge of inspiration, and say, unashamedly, when they’re proud of what they’ve made. They even like the same movies. 

It should work. But it doesn’t. Dan grows fonder of Harry by the day, more and more grateful to have this time with him, but never more in love with him. They retain that tinge of bickering that makes it feel like friendship, the long conversations that can spill into something frantic and wanting, but rarely do. They respect each other. They like each other. They don’t love each other. Not like he loves— Not like he loves Noah. And the way that hits him, the way it shoots through him in one startling burst of clarity and pain over the penultimate scene of _Pretty Woman_ , tells him everything he needs to know except what the fuck to do about it. 

“You okay?” Harry asks, kissing the stubbled plane of his cheek when the credits roll. 

“Yeah.”

“Liar.”

“We don’t have to talk about it.” 

Harry turns and crosses his legs, propping his elbow on the back of the couch. “I’m listening.” 

Dan rolls his eyes. “I’m just wondering what would happen if I went home.”

Harry smiles one of his most beautiful smiles, generous and heartfelt. A little laugh bubbles out of him. 

“What?”

“You just called Canada home.”

Dan looks around at the TV room. It’s cozy and pretty, and he still likes it. This is the only house he owns now. It was a smart business decision, to move here, put down roots here. But it’s not really home. 

“Do ever get tired of the back-and-forth?” Dan asks. Harry has a place in New York and London too, but he travels so much that he probably doesn’t spend a third of the year in any of them. 

“I feel quite lucky, actually. What makes the travel hardest is not having familiar people and places around you. So it’s nice to be able to split my time between here and London especially, and still feel like I’m coming to a place that’s mine. Do you still have a place up there?”

“No. I sold my condo.”

“Why?”

Dan shrugs. “The whole industry is here. I hate winter. It seemed important to be close to everything. Now I can’t remember why.”

“Why?” Harry asks, because he’s impossible. He moves closer and takes Dan into his arms, rubbing his back in slow, rhythmic passes.

Dan just shrugs again. He’s quiet for a long time; Harry doesn’t interrupt the silence. Finally, Dan says the rest of it. “When Noah and I were together, we weren’t able to see each other much anyway. I thought I knew how hard it was to miss him. I thought I could do it.”

Harry squeezes his hand. “I don’t know what would happen if you went home. But I can tell you that it’s always been much easier for me to get used to living in two or three places than it is to be away from someone who matters to me.”

“Yeah.” Dan nods, and then the tears start to fall. 

Harry stays, but he just holds him. Helps wipe his tears. He tucks him into bed and spoons himself around him, and Dan was wrong before. He does love him. Not in that aching, thrilling, soul-tugging way he loves Noah, but he loves him for his steadiness, for his strength, for his friendship. It’s no less valuable.

Harry postpones the rest of his tour, which he knew was coming, but Dan can still see how gutted he is. “I think I need to find something to do or I’ll lose my mind,” he says after a day of wallowing. “Maybe get on a film or something.”

He doesn’t have to spell out what that means for them. This thing they’re doing is coming to an end. At least the part of it that involves Harry’s hands and lips on his skin. Dan still hasn’t decided if he should go back to Canada, but he watches the news reports on cases there religiously. Even if Noah wants nothing to do with him, he might be better off there for a while. 

“What about you? Did you decide to go home?” Harry reads his mind.

“I don’t know yet,” Dan says. 

Harry rearranges himself so he’s looking at Dan and takes his hands between his own. “I think we’re getting too comfortable.” His smile is bittersweet and kind. “We could go on like this for a while longer, but we might find, eventually, that we’re disappointed in ourselves for it.”

Dan nods. He’s right. Dan knows he’s right. “So what do we do?”

“Come to bed with me,” Harry says. “Say goodbye.”

Dan takes his hand and follows him upstairs.

It’s sort of like the first time. Dan tries to go as slowly as his body will let him, lingers in soft touches and long kisses. Except this time, Harry seems to be doing the same thing, undressing him slowly and with heartstopping care.

Clothes off, covers turned back, Harry turns him on his stomach and kisses down his back, sucking on a mark he left two days prior. Dan writhes under the pinch of his mouth, right on the knife-edge of pain and pleasure, until Harry releases him and kisses him sweetly. 

He spreads Dan’s cheeks with a dry thumb, ghosting over his hole, and Dan feels the hot swell of need inside him. Harry kisses right above it, and it’s so slow, so coy, so close to what Dan wants that he has to squeeze the sheet in his fist to keep from reaching back and strangling him. 

“This okay?” Harry asks, rubbing his nose into the soft skin of Dan’s lower back. “Do we know each other well enough?”

Dan snorts. “Mmm-hmm. Yes. I think so.” 

Dan shifts his hips so he can rub himself into the sheets, the desperation starting to eat away at their slow exploration. He’s going to miss the way things build with Harry, the way he stokes the fire in him with such precision until it’s roaring. It’s roaring now, and Harry gets comfortable, settling between Dan’s legs, the warm stretch of one of his forearms pressing against Dan’s back. His fingers trace easy circles around the knobs of Dan’s spine as he whispers, “Perfect. Stay right here for me.” 

At first, he teases his tongue around the rim, gentle pressure, getting everything wet, making Dan fight against his own need, trying to stay still on his tongue like he asked. He licks into him, stretching him, and sucking. He gets a hand under Dan, and his touch does what it always does, and Dan comes too soon, so hard. He lets it roll through him, sagging down into the bed, and lets Harry catch him in his gentling hands. 

When it’s Harry’s turn, Dan lets himself enjoy Harry’s soft noises while he presses his cheeks apart and trails one finger around his rim. Harry gets louder, more demanding as Dan pushes in first one, then two.

“Three, fuck, give me three,” he growls, and Dan just laughs and watches two fingers disappear again inside him again, curling them until Harry stops making words. 

Harry starts to chase him whenever Dan pulls back, his hips trembling with effort. He looks young splayed out in front of him, taking what he wants, fucking himself on Dan’s fingers when he stops moving them.

“Three,” he grunts with a steely gaze. Dan feels that demand low in his belly, like a delayed aftershock, spreading out from the center of him, pushing Dan’s third finger in until Harry’s mouth clamps down on a groan. 

“Was that so—” He cuts off at the turn of Dan’s finger. “Christ. Fucking holy— I need—” He can’t seem to finish, but his feet dig into Dan’s legs, and by this point, Dan knows what he needs. 

“Okay, okay, okay,” Dan mumbles, trying to keep his wits. Fuck, he just came and it’s already like he needs this as much as Harry does. He reaches around him and strokes once, twice, and Harry comes hard, fingernails sinking into Dan’s forearm with each shudder. 

After they clean up, Harry gets them water and puts his joggers back on. They argue about what movie they should watch and end up talking instead, late into the night. 

“I’m going to miss you,” he says when the sun starts to come up on their conversation. 

“I’ll still be, you know. Around. Available. At the push of a button. Dan Levy—Not the Comedian.”

Harry snorts. “You know I changed that the day we helped Stacey move.”

“To what?” Dan asks, curious. 

“Dan Levy—Great Fuck, Even Better Friend.” 

It takes Dan too long to respond, and Harry starts laughing, giggles born of sleep-deprived delirium and maybe some of the same panic Dan is feeling about what’s next. “No. Um.” He swipes a hand back and forth across the crown of his head, nervously fluffing his hair. “You’re just Dan in there now.” 

Dan is touched. “Okay.” He takes his own phone and opens Harry’s contact. “There,” he says, showing him. He deleted the Greenley so it’s just Mick. Harry loses it in another fit of laughter and it’s infectious, just like everything about Harry. Dan laughs until his stomach hurts.

“Are you going to be okay?” Dan asks, once they’ve calmed down again.

“Yeah, I think so,” Harry says. 

“I don’t have to worry about opening your next album and finding a dozen songs about me?”

Harry looks at him, then cradles his face in his hands and kisses him once more, softly, chastely. “If there’s a song about you on there, it’ll be a happy one.”

Harry was right. It is easier to make choices without him around. Dan makes arrangements for Stacey to watch the house, drops Red off at his parents’, and buys a ticket to Canada. As he’s packing, he sees Harry’s coat in the front closet. At this point, finders keepers. Once he’s checked into the airport, he takes out his phone to find a message from Mick, no last name, the latest in a long stream of them. 

_Bon voyage and all that. Go get him._

The two-week quarantine goes slowly, but he has a nice lake to swim in and a friend doing it at the same time and then the Emmy nominations to keep him occupied. Any hope of surprising Noah gets dashed as he does interview after interview from the remote Ontario cabin. 

Still, when he shows up at Noah’s door, Noah looks at him like he’s only just let himself believe he’s really here.

“Um. Hi,” Dan starts, and Noah drags him inside and presses his hands to his cheeks, squeezing as if to make sure he’s real. 

“Daniel. What the actual fuck are you doing here?” He asks through that relieved, joyful, quintessentially Noah smile that makes Dan weak in the knees. 

“I’d sort of hoped that would be obvious.”

Noah looks at Dan with that blown-open hope that makes Dan’s heart start beating faster and louder. “How long are you here for?”

“I don’t know,” Dan says honestly. “But I’m getting a place here. And if I have to leave, I promise I’ll come back.”

Dan knows what’s coming before it happens. He’s seen that flick of Noah’s eyes to his lips enough times. But the moment stretches and stretches in that odd way that time can in 2020, like it’s been ten days since he last saw Noah in February and ten years since he showed up on Noah’s doorstep. His skin begins to prickle with the wanting of it, face still cupped between Noah’s palms, rough and familiar. 

Noah leans forward so slowly, and Dan begins to ache all over, the need to be kissing him scratching through his veins. With his face trapped between Noah’s hands, he can’t even speed him up, so he just has to stand there and wait. The anticipation is going to kill him. He’s come more than twenty-five hundred miles and he’s going to die here waiting for Noah to come the last six inches. 

When he finally kisses him, it’s so much more than Dan remembers. Noah kisses him and kisses him, and then he pulls him closer, wraps his arms around him until there’s no more space between them. He’s home.


End file.
